Tuesday, December 29, 2015

December
2015 started differently – disastrously for Chennai – it rained and the
incessant rains tormented people – killing a few; damaging property of
thousands of its residents – putting them to untold hardships. Those affected parts of Chennai are limping
back to normality. People have suffered
all sorts of damage and many are queuing Insurance Companies seeking
indemnity. Vehicles inundated water
remain in some places as garages do not have enough space to taken them in –
there is dearth of repairers..

.. .. .. for those of us
associated with Insurance Companies – there is much work in the form of
assessment, identification, documentation and indemnity. One striking aspect is ‘Chennai floods 2015’ –
perhaps has more uninsured losses !

Miles away, there
is trouble in UK as a fresh storm threatens to bring more misery to parts of
the UK, including areas already hit by severe flooding. Storm Frank is due to
sweep in from Tuesday evening, with Cumbria and south and central Scotland at
most risk. There are already nine severe flood warnings - meaning "danger
to life" - in England and Wales, mostly centred on York which was flooded
on Saturday. David Cameron has defended government spending on flood defences
after thedevastation across northern England.

Follow the latest
live updates on the flooding Hurricane force
winds of more than 120mph set to smash into Britain tonight in the form of
Storm Frank are more powerful than those of the infamous storm of 1987 which
claimed 22 lives. Met Office figures say the catastrophic winds which ripped up
15 MILLION trees across the country and left a £5BILLION trail of destruction
in their wake peaked at 115mph. This
storm is set to top 120mph.

In tune with my
thinking, MailOnline reports that uninsured victims face £1Billion bill as total cost of floods soars to
£5.8billion: Exactly the amount we are giving to the fight against global
warming abroad. Flood-hit residents who
were unable to take out insurance on their homes face £1billion in losses, it
has been revealed. Experts said prohibitively high costs meant some homeowners
and businesses were unable to take out sufficient cover before this month's
disaster in Cumbria, Yorkshire and Lancashire.

New estimates
suggest the cost of the floods could be up to £5.8billion - the exact amount
Britain recently committed to spend helping poorer countries tackle climate
change over the next five years. Flood victims have demanded that some of
Britain’s £12billion foreign aid budget is used to help them after a
catastrophic few weeks.

Small businesses
must be offered affordable insurance as part of a long-term plan for flood
defences, Labour has warned. Shadow business secretary Angela Eagle said it was
wrong to exclude small firms from the new ‘Flood RE’ scheme being established
to help homeowners. The scheme works by capping insurance premiums for people
in high flood risk areas, funded by a small premium on all other household
policies. But it excludes business premises - with ministers justifying the
decision in 2014 on the basis businesses would not pay into the scheme. Ms
Eagle said: ‘Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and this is an
issue of critical national importance, so Labour is ready to work with the
Government to come up with a long-term plan which addresses the key weaknesses
in our nation’s flood defences and preparedness, including help for businesses
in accessing affordable insurance."
She added: ‘Businesses are concerned that a scheme which provides
affordable insurance currently excludes small businesses.

Just we saw those
areas where houses have been constructed on water bodies badly affected - over there in UK too, despite warnings over further episodes of severe
flooding, some 10,000 homes are being built on the nation's floodplains each
year, according to analysis by the Financial Times. Accountants KPMG said the £5.8billion in
expected costs will include insured losses of up to £1.5billion - the estimated
cost of claims made by homeowners and businesses. But the cost of under insurance - the amount
insurers deem not to be covered by a given policy - was likely to be a further
£1billion, according to the company.

The limits on many
insurance policies mean they are inadequate for covering the full loss. In addition, given the post-Christmas timing,
homeowners will have indirectly increased their contents values with presents
and food, and while several policies provide for such an uplift, many do not. As
of April, a Government-backed scheme, Flood Re, will help enable flood cover to
be affordable for hundreds of thousands of households at highest risk of
flooding. However, community leaders have slammed the timing of its
introduction, saying homeowners needed this cover available to them months ago.

Labour MP Simon
Danczuk, whose Rochdale constituency has been badly affected by flooding, also
questioned the Government’s refusal to touch the aid budget. ‘Why do we spend
money in Bangladesh when it needs spending in Great Britain?’ he asked. Some of the overseas projects already funded
by UK taxpayers have proved controversial.
Projects to help the thousands of victims of severe flooding in Pakistan
and Bangladesh have been hit by complaints of poor administration and
governance. Around £200million has been pledged to Jamaica and other Caribbean
islands to upgrade their roads and bridges to cope with flooding and build sea
and river defences. Under EU rules, a
country has ten weeks from the first damage caused by a natural disaster to
make an application for aid. Last summer it paid out £60million to help the
recovery effort following floods in Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria in which 60
people died.

Britain has only
ever made one claim – after the summer floods of 2007 – and were awarded £130million.

1 comment:

I visit this blog first time and persuade by this good stuff work. Incredible post keeps up posting such great information. There are things here that I didn't think some time as of late. Because of cool such a position, to the point that is to a great degree carefully taken, we will talk a huge amount of colleagues about it.Best essay writing service